[77] Vide Hey’s Tract, Rousseau’s Eloisa, and many periodical Essays and Sermons.
[78] Vide “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her, &c.” Matt. v. 28.
[79] The writer cannot omit this opportunity of declaring, that he should long ago have brought this subject before the notice of Parliament, but for a perfect conviction that he should probably thereby only give encouragement to a system he wishes to see at an end. The practice has been at different periods nearly stopped by positive laws, in various nations on the Continent; and there can be little doubt of the efficacy of what has been more than once suggested—a Court of Honour; to take cognizance of such offences as would naturally fall within its province. The effects of this establishment would doubtless require to be enforced by legislative provisions, directly punishing the practice; and by discouraging at court, and in the military and naval situations, all who should directly or indirectly be guilty of it.
[80] Vide, in particular a paper in the Guardian, by Addison, on Honour, Vol. ii.
[81] Vide Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.
[82] The writer hopes that the work to which he is referring is so well known, that he needs scarcely name Mrs. H. More.
[83] See Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.
[84] While all are worthy of blame, who, to qualities like these, have assigned a more exalted place than to religious and moral principle; there is one writer who, eminently culpable in this respect, deserves, on another account, still severer reprehension. Really possessed of powers to explore and touch the finest strings of the human heart, and bound by his sacred profession to devote those powers to the service of religion and virtue, he every where discovers a studious solicitude to excite indecent ideas. We turn away our eyes with disgust from open immodesty: but even this is less mischievous than that more measured style, which excites impure images, without shocking us by the grossnesses of the language. Never was delicate sensibility proved to be more distinct from plain practical benevolence, than in the writings of the author to whom I allude. Instead of employing his talents for the benefit of his fellow-creatures, they were applied to the pernicious purposes of corrupting the national taste, and of lowering the standard of manners and morals. The tendency of his writings is to vitiate that purity of mind, intended by Providence as the companion and preservative of youthful virtue; and to produce, if the expression may be permitted, a morbid sensibility in the perception of indecency. An imagination exercised in this discipline is never clean, but seeks for and discovers something indelicate in the most common phrases and actions of ordinary life. If the general style of writing and conversation were to be formed on that model, to which Sterne used his utmost endeavours to conciliate the minds of men, there is no estimating the effects which would soon be produced on the manners and morals of the age.
[85] Vide Smith on the Wealth of Nations, Vol. iii.
[86] Vide the Grammarians and Dialecticians on the Diminutives of the Italian and other languages.